Working Smart

Magic And Money Helps Start A Business

May 26, 1991|By Pamela Sherrod.

One question that comes to mind when one hears that Frances Lear willaddress a group of women about starting a business is, How can she really address this subject when she got a multimillion-dollar nudge across the starting line?

Frances Lear, the president and founder of Lear Publishing Inc. and editor-in-chief of Lear`s magazine, has grown accustomed to such skepticism.

FOR THE RECORD - Additional material published June 2, 1991:Corrections and clarifications.In a ``Lifelines`` resource listing in the May 26 issue of Womanews, the contact information for Women in Franchising wasincomplete. The correct phone number is 1-800-222-4943. The Tribune regrets the error.

She doesn`t argue that her approximately $110 million divorce settlement from television producer Norman Lear enabled her to start her publishing business, but she doesn`t buy critics` assessments that she got a helping handor a push.

Addressing this subject as nimbly as a cat tripping across an inch-wide rail 30 stories up, Lear tells why her critics are wrong.

``That is the only thing that women accuse me of that I resent, truly resent,`` said the 67-year-old Lear, who started her magazine after divorcing her husband of 28 years. ``I worked for the money I put into this magazine. I worked all my life for this money. It did not just get handed to me. I made my own good start.``

Lear started the magazine when she was 62, an age when some people are thinking about retiring, not beginning new ventures.

``Talk about paying dues, oh, have I ever,`` Lear said in an interview before addressing a group of women attending a lifestyle and career series at Nordstrom in Oakbrook Center. ``And, I paid mine during a time when women weren`t paid much of anything for any reason.``

Like her magazine, she is forthcoming, more raw and earthy than her exquisitely tailored suit would suggest.

Lear`s magazine, a monthly, is targeted toward women over 40; its 1990 circulation was about 385,000.

``Women`s lives are cut in two,`` Lear said. ``The first 30 years are preparatory. Somewhere from the 30s on you start to live your life. That`s where my reader is at. I`m interested in contributing toward that life. I`m interested in seeing what I can do as an editor to make that life better without using hyperbole.``

``We give Lear`s reader two things,`` she said. ``We give her knowledge and we give her inspiration.``

But the advertisements in the magazine that feature models in their 20s aren`t a reflection of Lear`s readers. ``I`m working on this,`` she said of the ads. ``And I`m trying to get advertisers to understand the Lear woman (40- plus) is the market worth targeting.``

Lear was inspired to start her magazine when she moved from Los Angelesto New York. The magazine debuted in 1988.

``I had been in an environment where (publishing) work was unlikely,``

said Lear, who temporarily dropped out of the labor market at 34 when she married Norman Lear. She had worked in the retail business and started one of the first executive search firms for women in the 1960s. She had no publishing experience.

``I asked myself, `What`s missing in magazines?` and found the answer in Lear`s,`` said Lear. ``Find something that no one else has, that no one else is doing, believe in it and believe in you.``

When she began working on the magazine Lear remembers being in many frames of mind.

``I was in a sad frame of mind because one part of my life had ended,``

she said. ``I was in a very powerful frame of mind because I knew I had the opportunity to do something of a character I`d never done before. I had the chance to state my case, to project myself, and in projecting myself, I found another woman, and that other woman was me.``

Seeing herself as an entrepreneur started to take form when Lear was a girl. Her father committed suicide in 1933 when his small uniform-

manufacturing company failed and he lost the family`s home.

``As an only child and with only one parent I didn`t have enough recognition,`` Lear said. ``I think I was motivated to start my business because of that. Entrepreneurs want recognition.``

She thinks a little magic also helps.

``An entrepreneur has to have some magic. The likelihood is that he orshe will fail without it,`` she said. ``A product cannot be like any oldproduct. It has to have some originality, and there lies the magic.``

LIFELINES

The Network of Women Entrepreneurs offers a regular series of breakfast meetings and lectures on business ownership. Contact the network at P.O. Box298, Winnetka, Ill., 60093; 1-708-835-8911.

Women in Franchising, a Chicago-based, private association for entrepreneurs, conducts conferences about opportunities in purchasing and managing franchises. 1-800-4943.